Getting/setting default values from my App.config

Imagine that I need a color palette for my Winforms application to have a consistent look.

What I did was create a static helper class and helper methods that I can call from anywhere in my code, and invoke what I need from the App.settings file.

Here for example, I am getting the school name from the App.config file, so I can sell this application to other schools with minimal changes on my part.









using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Configuration;

namespace Uboldi.Helpers
{
public static class CustomizationHelper
{
public static string GetSchoolName()
{
return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["schoolName"];
}
}
}


Usage:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using Uboldi.Helpers;

namespace Uboldi
{
    public partial class MainForm : Form
    {
        public MainForm()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            LoadFormTitle();
        }

        private void LoadFormTitle()
        {
            var schoolName = CustomizationHelper.GetSchoolName();
            this.Text = String.Format("Sistema {0} - Pagina Principal", schoolName);
        }
    }
}

Are there any glaring mistakes I'm making by choosing this type of architecture?

While somewhat of a tangent from your question but you may find it helpful nonetheless.

I would recommend looking at a custom ConfigurationSection which allows you to define more complex configuration hierarchies that are strongly-typed. I find it much easier to use a custom configuration section than having to remember a bunch of magic strings in the appSettings element and also allows you to specific which values are required, what the defaults values are, etc.

Using a custom configuration section you could create a configuration type like:

public class UboldiConfigurationSection : System.Configuration.ConfigurationSection {
    [ConfigurationProperty("schoolName")]
    public string SchoolName {
        get { return (string)this["schoolName"]; }
        set { this["schoolName"] = value; }
    }
}

Then to load that configuration type:

public static class UboldiApplication {
    public static UboldiConfigurationSection Config { get; internal set; }

    public static void Initialize() {
        Config = ConfigurationManager.GetSection("uboldi") as UboldiConfigurationSection;
    }
}

The app.config then would look something like this:

Lastly, you use the configuration by:

public void Test() {    
    //This only needs to be done once, presumably in your Program.Main method
    UboldiApplication.Initialize();

    var name = UboldiApplication.Config.SchoolName;
}

A couple of notes:

• You'll need to reference the System.Configuration assembly as it's not usually referenced in VS by default.

• The ConfigurationManager.GetSection("uboldi") is expecting the name of the section in the app.config file. You'll note that this matches in the example above.

• The section element in the app.config file uses the standard .Net type name convention to locate the specified configuration section. In this example I am assuming that the UboldiConfigurationSection type is the Uboldi namespace and in an Uboldi assembly (dll or exe).

• You can add hierarchy by creating ConfigurationElement sub classes and using them as properties in your configuration section and elements.

• The link above is for a Web.config, but the same thing is possible in an app.config file.

StackExchange Code Review Q#186, answer score: 45